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Numbers 25:1-3
While Israel was staying in
Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual
immorality with Moabite women, who invited them
to the sacrifices to their gods. The people ate
and bowed down before these gods. So Israel
joined in worshiping the Baal of Peor. And the
LORD's anger burned against them.
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March 6
Compromise Leads to
Disaster
In the
previous devotion we saw that God warned the
Israelites that if the foreigners remained among
them, they would become a snare. This
passage shows the results of leaving a snare
behind.
Two sins are committed,
one that leads to another. It is common in
life for one sin to lead to another which
snowballs into a big problem. The first
sin is the sexual immorality with the Moabite
women. If it was stopped then, it would
have not been nearly as bad. Not to gloss
over this particular sin, but we all sin and
slip up. The key is not to compound those
mistakes with further ones.
Once the Moabite women are
in the Israelites lives, it is not a big step
toward the invitation to sacrifice to Baal.
A more common occurrence in the church today
(although sexual immorality is also in the
church) is skipping church. We may justify
it because we had a hard week at work, the yard
work has fallen behind, or there's a game on
that we can't miss.
One week turns into two
weeks because once we justify something once,
it's easier to justify it again. The next
thing we know, we haven't been to church in a
month and didn't even realize it.
Small compromises will
lead to bigger ones later on. Car thieves
don't start out stealing cars, they start by
stealing candy bars. Israel's first sin
ended up with the people worshipping Baal and
God's anger burning against them. |
